MAMA

Spain, 2013, 95 minutes, Colour.
Jessica Chastain, Nikolas Coster- Waldau, Megan Charpentier, Isabelle Nellise, Dan Kash.
Directed by Andres Muschietti.

Apart from wanting to see a ghost story, another good reason is to watch Mama because it stars Jessica Chastain, so prolific in performances in recent years (Tree of Life, The Help, Lawless and her Oscar-nominated role in Zero Dark Down). Actually, she is quite unrecognizable, with short, straight black hair, black lacquered fingernails and an abrupt Manner as a singer. A reminder of her versatility.

But, the ghost and the haunting are the important things. During a financial crisis, a man kills his partners and his wife and abducts his children, intending to kill them. However, he kills himself, leaving the girls who are lost in the woods for years. When they are eventually found, they are wild children, dirty, hungry, the younger unable to speak. They are entrusted to the dead man’s brother and his partner (Chastain).

It quickly emerges that the girls were protected by a mysterious presence whom they call Mama. Mama begins to Manifest herself, especially with growing weblike branches on walls and roofs, sinisterly black. We glimpse a presence and hear weird sounds/words.

While the intervention of Mama increases and becomes deadly, especially for the psychiatrist who has worked out who she is and what happened to her and her child in the past (in flashbacks for us). For an educated therapist, the doctor does go into dark and frightening places when common sense would advise not.

Nikolas Coster- Walder is the sympathetic uncle (who falls foul of Mama). When he is hospitalized, Anabel has to care for the children and begins to bond with the elder. When she discovers the story from the past, she returns to the place of death where there is more dramatic intensity as Anabel confronts the ghost.

While the film is in colour, it is muted colour, dark colour at times for this kind of eerie story.

1. A ghost story? A haunting story? The nature of the ghost, the background, the mission, protecting the two little girls? Eerie atmosphere? Some shock sequences?

2. The setting, the town, the highways, the forest, the house and woods? The rooms of the psychiatrist? Realistic? Atmospheric score?

3. The title, the references to the ghost, to Annabel, Annabel as a mama? The special effects, the ghost, interventions, the black webs on the wall and roof, the sound effects, the stunt work?

4. Jeffrey, the opening, the business crisis, as partners and their deaths, killing his wife, taking the children, going on the road, the car and speeding, the children agitated, his own worries, the crash, going to the house with children? Dark, sinister? His intentions? His suicide?

5. The two little girls, their age, the death of a mother, their father taking them in the car, abandoning them in the house, dark, dirty, no food, their being alone and hungry? Years passing?

6. Luke and Annabel, as a couple, their personalities, the bond between them, searching for the little girls over the years? The contact with the psychiatrist? The finding of the car? Luke and the photo of the arch? The discovery of the girls, the state they were in, wild creatures?

7. The doctor, His investigations, diagnosis? Victoria and her retention of some language? Lily as completely wild? Cleaning the girls, their behavior, Victoria more civilized, not responding to the training? Eating habits, Lily on the floor? Victoria trying to help? Clothing? The room?

8. Their discussions about mama? Providing information? The doctor and his theories, the background of the murder case, the newspapers, the photos? The flashback dramatising the situation for the woman, the institution, the staff, the Catholic background, escape, her child, on the cliff, her fall, caught on the branch? Her death? The doctor and his hypnotising Victoria, the tapes? The information, his going to the house, his death? Annabel looking at the tapes? The audience watching, some explanations for the children's experience?

9. Anibel, her music, her style, appearance, with Luke, helping him? The difficulties with the children, not bonding with them at first, not being motherly? Coping, communicating? with Victoria, with Lily? Luke in hospital? Anabel coping better? The detail of her interactions with the children?

10. Luke, helping, his injuries, in hospital, as recovery?

11. Mama and her identity,